website. christosbarbas.com
Multi-instrumentalist and composer, Christos Barbas is one of the most multifaceted and creative musicians coming from Greece. From an early age he studied the recorder, piano, baroque music, harmony and counterpoint, finishing his studies of Western music in 2002. He studied musicology and ethnomusicology (Mmus) in the Department of Music at the University of Aristotelio (Thessaloniki) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (London). Since 2003 he focuses on the study of Ney, Sufi and classical Ottoman music with outstanding performers in Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. At the same time he studies and plays several instruments of different musical cultures (kaval, bansuri, irish whistles, bagpipes) ranging from traditional musics to free improvisation and jazz.
His main interest is a creative approach to music. Especially the study of older musics, sacred and popular, from the point of view that underline their timelessness and possibilities for to people to create, rather than the rigidity of authenticity itself. He communicates this goal through the interpretation of old music, his own compositions, and participating in various projects with other arts and teaching in seminars and workshops of music.
He composes for different formations in a variety of styles (music for contemporary dance, theatre, cinema, modal music) producing 9 cds till now of original music (Yeden, Neda, Magnanimus Trio & Murat Aydemir, Peppe Frana, Efrén López). Along with his own groups he collaborates with some of the most prominent performers and creators of traditional and contemporary music: Ross Daly & Labyrinth, Zohar Fresco, Efrén López & Abracadabra, L’Ham de Foc, Evgenios Voulgaris, Milo ke Mandarini Quartet, Maria Farantouri, Anja Lechner, Thomas Strønen, Björn Meyer etc participating in concerts worldwide recording extensively in the wider field of contemporary modal music with companies as An Music, Felmay IT and ECM Records.
He has taught Ney and Kaval, interpretation, improvisation and composition in Modal Music at the University of Popular Music and Traditional Arta (Greece), and also in Macedonia (Thessaloniki). He teaches in Musical Workshop Labyrinth in Crete and in other cultural centers throughout Europe and is the artistic director of Labyrinth Catalunya.
